BIRDS. 



1. Cathartes atratus. Rich, and Swain. 



Cathartes urubu, D'Orbigny. Voy. Ois. 

 Vultur atratus, Bartram, p. 287. 



jota, Jardine's "Wilson, vol. iii. p. 236. 



•te's List, p. 1. 



Gallinazo or Cuervo of the Spanish inhabitants of America ; and Black Vulture or Carrion Crow of the 

 English of that continent. 



These birds, I believe, are never found further south, than the neighbourhood 

 of the Rio Negro, in latitude 41°: I never saw one in southern Patagonia, or 

 in Tierra del Fuego. They appear to prefer damp places, especially the vicinity 

 of rivers ; and thus, although abundant both at the Rio Negro and Colorado, 

 they are not found on the intermediate plains. Azara* states, that there existed 

 a tradition in his time, that on the first arrival of the Spaniards in the Plata, 

 these birds were not found in the neighbourhood of Monte Video, but that 

 they subsequently followed the inhabitants from more northern districts. 

 M. Al. D'Orbigny, in reference to this statement, observes that these vultures, 

 although common on the northern bank of the Plata, and likewise on the 

 rivers south of it, are not found in the neighbourhood of Buenos Ayres, where 

 the immense slaughtering establishments are attended by infinite numbers of 

 Polybori and gulls. M. D'Orbigny supposes that their absence is owing to the 

 scarcity of trees and bushes in the Pampas ; but this view, I think, will hardly 

 hold good, inasmuch as the country near Bahia Blanca, where the Gallinazo 

 (together with the carrion- feeding gull) is common, is as bare, if not more so, 

 than the plains near Buenos Ayres. I have never seen the Gallinazo in Chile ; 

 and Molina, who was aware of the difference between the C. atratus and C. aura, 

 has not noticed it ; yet, on the opposite side of the Cordillera, near Mendoza, 

 it is common. They do not occur in Chiloe, or on the west coast of the con- 

 tinent south of that island. In Wilson's Ornithology it is said that " the carrion 

 crow (as this bird is called in the United States) is seldom found on the 

 Atlantic to the northward of Newbern, lat. 35° North Carolina." But in 

 Richardson's " Fauna Boreali- Americana," it is mentioned, on the authority of 

 Mr. David Douglas, that on the Pacific side of the continent, it is common on 

 the marshy islands of the Columbia, and in the neighbourhood of Lewis's and 

 Clark's rivers (45° — 47° N.) It has, therefore, a wider range in the northern 



* Voyage dans l'Amerique Meridionale, vol. iii. p. 24. 



